Female Directors and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from the Environmental Investment of Chinese Listed Companies

Abstract

Taking Chinese listed companies in 2008-2015 as the sample, in this paper we test in detail the impact of female directors on corporate environmental investments. Furthermore, we study the impact of female directors on environmental investment in enterprises with different types of ownership and industry attributes. Empirical studies show that when there are only 1 or 2 female directors on the board, no significant impact on the scale of corporate environmental investment can be seen. However, when the number reaches at least 3, female directors have a significantly positive impact on the scale of corporate environmental investment. This confirms critical-mass theory; meanwhile, we find that the empirical results do not indicate any significant correlation when the variable of female directors is measured by the proportion of female directors and the Blau index of gender balance. Further analysis suggests that in state-owned enterprises and enterprises from heavily-polluting industries, the above findings remain true, while in non-state-owned enterprises and enterprises from non-heavily-polluting industries, the above findings prove false, i.e., that the impact of female directors on corporate environmental investment is not significant. The conclusion demonstrates that the impact of female directors on environmental investment varies in enterprises with different types of ownership and industry attributes.

Gender Equality Among CSR Managers and its Influence on Sustainable Development: A Comparison Among Italy, Spain and United Kingdom

“…While the United Kingdom presents the highest presence of sustainable companies and contemporarily the lowest share of female CSR managers. The obtained results are aligned with current literature stating that the evidence for a direct relation between women in managerial positions, financial performance, market value and environmental performance is weak (Alazzani et al, 2017;Galbreath, 2018, Nekhili et al, 2017Wei et al, 2017).…”

“…Another strand of research inquires the key role that female directors and female topmanagers play in the "environmental decision-making". In China,Wei et al (2017) analyse a sample of quoted companies in the period 2008-2015, in order to evaluate the influence of female directors on corporate environmental investments. Their results show that there is a critical-mass effect: only when the number of women directors on boards reaches at least 3, they have a significantly positive impact on corporate environmental investments.…”

Does religion benefit corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Evidence from China

“…Following Du, Jian, Zeng, et al () and Wei et al (), I divided the sample into low‐ and high‐polluting industries (mining and quarrying; textile, clothing, and fur; papermaking and printing; petroleum, chemical, rubber, and plastic; metal and nonmetal; medicine and biologic products; production and supply of power, gas, and water; etc.). I take the dummy variable ( LPI ) to measure this condition.…”

“…Previous psychological studies also indicate that religious people feel much stronger guilt about their erroneous things even when they are unintentional (Quiles & Bybee, ), and feeling guilty leads to the tendency to compensate for their wrongdoing (Ghorbani, Liao, Caykoylu, & Chand, ). Polluting industries are the main cause of environmental problems (Wei, Ding, & Kong, ) and are usually sensitive to CSR due to their negative impact (Dyduch & Krasodomska, ). To have a brighter future life, managers in regions of high‐level religiosity might have a stronger motivation to conduct CSR activities in high‐polluting industries than in low‐polluting industries.…”

“…Du, Jian, Zeng, and Du () also showed that Buddhism is conducive to corporate environmental responsibility in polluting industries. Wei et al () found that the effect of female directors on environmental investment is more significant in heavily polluting industries than in non‐heavily polluting industries. On the basis of the above analysis, this paper has the following hypothesis.Hypothesis Ceteris paribus, the positive effect of religion on CSR is less pronounced in low‐polluting industries than in high‐polluting industries.…”